


Odds Are: Never Again

by riot3672



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Babysitting, Barton Family, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), pietro and wanda and the bartons, probability manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riot3672/pseuds/riot3672
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is finally paying Pietro and Wanda to watch Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel, and all Wanda wants is to prove that they - or at least she - aren't incompetent punks. But, with Pietro treating 2-month-old Nathaniel to Quicksilver runs and the threat of Wanda's power finding a new way to manifest, the Maximoffs might not be getting their $15 an hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odds Are: Never Again

Clint had promised that he’d bring Wanda and her twin into his family, but so far, babysitting was as far as it went. Wanda didn’t mind, really—sometimes Clint would pay them, and his kids really were a joy. Cooper and Lila were old enough for conversation, yet still young enough to be in total awe of her and Pietro, and Nathaniel was still young enough that he didn’t need much entertainment.

That night, Clint was offering them each fifteen dollars an hour, and after a week of hard training with Steve, being able to sit around and watch TV with the kids was a blessing. Pietro still wasn't buying it, but he did show up with her.

“Wanda, can we get ice cream?” Lila asked about ten minutes after Clint, Laura, and Natasha left.

“Ask Pietro about that one,” Wanda replied, eyeing her brother as he played with Nathaniel. 

While Pietro had been in a comatose-like state as his body healed itself, Clint had named Nathaniel after Pietro. Ever since Pietro emerged 100% fine, Clint had been attempting to change Nathaniel’s middle name while Pietro made his mark on his “namesake.” 

Pietro glanced over at Lila. “I don’t wait in lines. Would it be crowded right now?”

“There’s never more than two people in there,” Cooper replied.

“Too many.”

Lila and Cooper looked to Wanda, scowls on their little faces. “Wanda, your brother’s being mean,” Lila said.

Wanda smiled. “His mind runs faster than ours, so he’s very impatient. I can’t really blame him.”

In fact, being inside Pietro’s head while waiting in line at Chipotle could be classified as torture. 

“You’re just being overdramatic,” Cooper said.

Pietro actually pulled Nathaniel out of his carseat to face Cooper as he replied. “Have you ever had to make…I don’t know, a kiddy baseball game while standing in line at Subway and there’s a guy in front of you who doesn’t know what he wants or how the restaurant works at all? That’s what my life is like, every hour of every day. Imagine what it’s like when I _actually_ have to stand in line in back of someone who has to use all five of his samples and still takes three minutes to decide.”

Cooper kept the scowl, but it began to loosen. “If there’s no one there, will you?”

“How about this? I’ll take you, leave you, and you tell me when you want me to pick you up.”

“Where would you be?”

Pietro glanced at Wanda and shrugged. “Running laps around the shop. I don't know.”

“You’re so weird.”

Not according to Agent Hill. Pietro exchanged a glance with Wanda, and she nodded. It sounded unnecessarily complicated, but Pietro’s plans often seemed like that. 

Cooper got everyone’s orders, and Pietro…picked up baby Nathaniel and set him inside a baby carrier strapped to his chest. 

“You run at the speed of light, and you want to put a two-month-old through that?” Wanda asked.

“He’ll be fine. Look at all this neck support!”

“Yeah, Wanda. You worry too much,” Cooper said as he climbed onto Pietro’s back. 

Wanda lunged to get the baby, but all she got was dust and, “Too slow!”

Wanda sat back down across from Lila and took a deep breath. They’d be fine. A huge part of Pietro’s training had been learning how to safety handle civilians with his powers. He wouldn’t be so unaware to not make sure Nathaniel was safe. He was probably kidding about running in circles until Cooper got the ice cream.

She should’ve put a hex on him. 

Lila played quietly with her toys, declining Wanda’s involvement. Wanda was content to watch, but it also made it too tempting to fall asleep. In fact, maybe a few minutes of nodding off would be useful…

“Wanda!”

Wanda startled awake, everything that could possibly be going wrong at that moment flashing through her mind. Her eyes went automatically to Lila. “What’s wrong?”

“Pietro threw Nathaniel’s blanket on the lamp and it might catch on fire!”

Wanda looked to the alleged fire hazard. “Lila, I don’t think your dad would keep a lamp that’s a fire hazard. Do you want me to move it?” Lila nodded. “You’re not worried your house is a safety hazard, are you?”

“They just taught it in school.”

Wanda couldn’t tell if that was a good decision or not on the American school system.

“Tell me more about it.”

Just as Lila began to explain, Pietro and the boys came bursting through the front door. Cooper jumped off Pietro, a take out bag waving in his hand.

“C’mon, Lila,” Cooper called, and Lila left to claim her treat. 

Wanda looked to her brother. “Let me see the baby.”

Pietro turned so she could see Nathaniel. He was still visibly breathing, awake in fact. Not crying. Thank God.

Pietro tossed her her ice cream cup and rubbed the back of Nathaniel’s carrier. “This little guy’s already living up to his namesake. Tougher than steel.”

She quirked a brow. “Pietro, I don’t think Natty’s feeling very well.”

Finally, Pietro looked down and noticed the baby vomit on his shirt. He groaned and pulled Nathaniel out of the carrier.

“No, Nathaniel, you’re better than this,” Pietro said as he examined the baby. 

Wanda got up. “Give me the baby. Try cleaning yourself up.”

Wanda tried to take her time cleaning off Nathaniel, hoping any deeper damage Pietro might’ve caused the baby would surface. But, he seemed okay. He cried a bit as she handled him, but he didn’t seem to still have an upset stomach, or any internal damage. She tried peering into his mind, but he was still so young that the thoughts weren’t much more than fuzzy flashes of images, her own face mirrored as she held him. 

Once Nathaniel was soothed and back to sleep, Wanda tucked him into his bassinet, made sure the baby monitor was on, and returned to her other three kids. Pietro might’ve even gotten the entire vomit stain off, but the poor idiot had worn a white shirt. 

“No luck?” Wanda teased.

He wriggled out of his shirt, and Wanda had the strangest feeling that he had no plans to find a new one. “He must’ve gotten sick on the way back. Hmm, two trips. Looks like someone finally beat you out, Wanda.”

Lila and Cooper looked to Wanda. “But you’re like, the best Pietro rider ever,” Lila said.

At least Pietro was now reduced to a horse.

_No mind control._

Pietro smirked. “We all gotta start somewhere.”

“Convenient leaving out the bit where you had so little control over your powers that Strucker could’ve sold you to those,” she hesitated, thinking of Good Guy Steve Rogers, “garbage carnivals as a ride.”

Pietro shrugged, “We’ll see where Strucker left the note next time Steve lets us read our files.” He tossed his shirt onto the lamp, and Lila cried out.

“Pietro, that’s a safety hazard!”

Pietro furrowed his brow. “That is not a safety hazard. There’s a…one in million chance that’d ever catch on fire.”

Wanda stared at the lamp. She wondered what the actual probability that it would catch fire.

She didn’t notice the hex energy forming between her fingers.

And then the lamp was on fire.

Lila screamed, Cooper jumped back, and Pietro immediately turned to her.

“Wanda,” Pietro said. 

Had she done that?

“Wan-da!”

How could she have done that? Her hexes could move objects, but she couldn’t just make things catch fire.

“Wanda!” Pietro was suddenly in front of her, grabbing her wrists. “Wanda, Jesus! Wanda!”

“Go put out the fire!” Wanda finally said.

Pietro got the job done quickly. Certainly not enough time for Wanda to stop feeling woozy. 

For a while, the Barton kids and Maximoffs just stared at the charred remains of Pietro’s shirt and the lamp. What did it mean if she had caused that? That her hexes were flammable, or something else? It wasn't like she had fire powers. The scepter that had given her and Pietro their powers worked around one type of powers--speed and mental manipulation. It had to be something mental, but what? 

“So…have you always had the ability to make objects spontaneously combust?” Pietro asked.

Wanda shook her head. “I don’t know…”

“Can you do it again?” Pietro looked around the room. “Make the curtains catch fire or something.”

“Pietro, no. We should wait to tell Steve.” She ran a hand through her hair. “How is this possible? Our powers don’t just evolve, do they?”

“Or you’re mutated,” Cooper said. “Maybe you guys were lied to, and you’re actually mutants like Wolverine and Magneto and Jean Grey.”

“We’re not _mutants_ ,” Pietro snapped. “But I don’t think even Agent Hill could come up with a scientific explanation for that one.”

“What is it, though? I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking of setting it on fire. I was just thinking about the probability that it could happen.” 

Pietro furrowed his brow. “Is that a power? Probability manipulation?”

What kind of a power was that? Jesus, she could really use Vision or Thor right about then; they seemed to understand these infinity stones and all the magic that came with it.

Wanda shook her head. “I don’t know…”

She looked around the room, at the charred lamp, at Pietro without his shirt, at the silent and staring children with their melting ice cream. What were the odds that Clint would come home early?

And then the car pulled in.

Shit.

“Hey guys,” Clint said as he walked through the front door. “Sorry we can’t give you guys more time. Laura wasn’t feel well, so we—” He saw the living room. “God dammit, Pietro!”

Wanda tried really hard not to laugh, but it was no use. Pietro stood up straighter, as if he wasn’t not wearing a shirt. “Wanda made my shirt spontaneously combust, along with your lamp, and you're blaming me for this?”

"Why would I ever believe that?"  Natasha and Wanda exchanged a glance; Wanda nodded. Clint didn't seem to notice.  "I really shouldn't pay you two, but how much do I owe you two?" 

Pietro swiped Clint’s wallet, counted out fifteen, handed it to Wanda, took fifteen, then an extra fifty for himself, and handed the wallet back.

“What’s the fifty for?” Clint demanded.

“My shirt your son ruined.”

“You just said Wanda made it catch fire.”

Pietro motioned over his torso. “Do I look like I’m covered in burns? I was lucky enough that it caught fire after your son soiled it.”

Pietro motioned Wanda over, and she climbed on piggyback.

“Wait, did you really light up Pietro’s shirt?” Natasha asked. 

"Scarlet Witch is fitting more and more every day," Wanda sighed.

“Steve’s gonna have a field day tomorrow.”

With that, Pietro ran them both back to Avengers HQ, to the sound of Clint yelling, “Who’s paying for my lamp?” into the night. 


End file.
